Characterisation of aerosol constituents from wildfires using satellites and model data: a case study in Knysna, South Africa

Shikwambana, Lerato; Ncipha, Xolile; Malahlela, Oupa E.; Mbatha, Nkanyiso; Sivakumar, Venkataraman

doi:10.1080/01431161.2019.1573338

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 64 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…One of the advantages of the HYSPLIT model is its ability to simulate scenarios describing the atmospheric transport, dispersion, and deposition of pollutants and hazardous materials. Some examples include the transport of volcanic aerosols [ 47 ] and wildfire smoke [ 48 ]. In this study, we used the back-trajectory analysis to establish the source-receptor relationship.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qualitative Study on the Observations of Emissions, Transport, and the Influence of Climatic Factors from Sugarcane Burning: A South African Perspective

Shikwambana

Ncipha

Sangeetha

et al. 2021

IJERPH

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There are two methods of harvesting sugarcane—manual or mechanical. Manual harvesting requires the burning of the standing sugarcane crop. Burning of the crop results in the emission of aerosols and harmful trace gases into the atmosphere. This work makes use of a long-term dataset (1980–2019) to study (1) the atmospheric spatial and vertical distribution of pollutants; (2) the spatial distribution and temporal change of biomass emissions; and (3) the impact/influence of climatic factors on temporal change in atmospheric pollutant loading and biomass emissions over the Mpumalanga and KwaZulu Natal provinces in South Africa, where sugarcane farming is rife. Black carbon (BC) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) are two dominant pollutants in the JJA and SON seasons due to sugarcane burning. Overall, there was an increasing trend in the emissions of BC, SO2, and carbon dioxide (CO2) from 1980 to 2019. Climatic conditions, such as warm temperature, high wind speed, dry conditions in the JJA, and SON season, favor the intensity and spread of the fire, which is controlled. The emitted pollutants are transported to neighboring countries and can travel over the Atlantic Ocean, as far as ~6600 km from the source site.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qualitative Study on the Observations of Emissions, Transport, and the Influence of Climatic Factors from Sugarcane Burning: A South African Perspective

Shikwambana

Ncipha

Sangeetha

et al. 2021

IJERPH

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Sentinel-2 multispectral images have been used for land cover/use monitoring in different ways across the world. These various aspects include forest mapping [126][127][128], carbon assessments [129,130], urban area mapping [131,132] and natural hazards monitoring [41,133,134]. Other vital applications include agricultural [135,136] and water resources monitoring [77,137].…”

Section: Specific Applications Of Sentinel-2 In Land Cover/land Use Monitoringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sentinel-2 Data for Land Cover/Use Mapping: A Review

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The advancement in satellite remote sensing technology has revolutionised the approaches to monitoring the Earth’s surface. The development of the Copernicus Programme by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union (EU) has contributed to the effective monitoring of the Earth’s surface by producing the Sentinel-2 multispectral products. Sentinel-2 satellites are the second constellation of the ESA Sentinel missions and carry onboard multispectral scanners. The primary objective of the Sentinel-2 mission is to provide high resolution satellite data for land cover/use monitoring, climate change and disaster monitoring, as well as complementing the other satellite missions such as Landsat. Since the launch of Sentinel-2 multispectral instruments in 2015, there have been many studies on land cover/use classification which use Sentinel-2 images. However, no review studies have been dedicated to the application of ESA Sentinel-2 land cover/use monitoring. Therefore, this review focuses on two aspects: (1) assessing the contribution of ESA Sentinel-2 to land cover/use classification, and (2) exploring the performance of Sentinel-2 data in different applications (e.g., forest, urban area and natural hazard monitoring). The present review shows that Sentinel-2 has a positive impact on land cover/use monitoring, specifically in monitoring of crop, forests, urban areas, and water resources. The contemporary high adoption and application of Sentinel-2 can be attributed to the higher spatial resolution (10 m) than other medium spatial resolution images, the high temporal resolution of 5 days and the availability of the red-edge bands with multiple applications. The ability to integrate Sentinel-2 data with other remotely sensed data, as part of data analysis, improves the overall accuracy (OA) when working with Sentinel-2 images. The free access policy drives the increasing use of Sentinel-2 data, especially in developing countries where financial resources for the acquisition of remotely sensed data are limited. The literature also shows that the use of Sentinel-2 data produces high accuracies (>80%) with machine-learning classifiers such as support vector machine (SVM) and Random forest (RF). However, other classifiers such as maximum likelihood analysis are also common. Although Sentinel-2 offers many opportunities for land cover/use classification, there are challenges which include mismatching with Landsat OLI-8 data, a lack of thermal bands, and the differences in spatial resolution among the bands of Sentinel2. Sentinel-2 data show promise and have the potential to contribute significantly towards land cover/use monitoring.

show abstract

“…The low background concentrations during the summer season are due to moist unstable atmospheric conditions that are suitable for rapid pollution dispersion, mixing, and deposition by rainfall (Tyson et al, 1996) and carbon uptake by forests and savannas through photosynthesis (Fang et al, 2014;Valentini et al, 2014). In contrast, the CT study area was dominated by the off-shore flow during the summer season (Ncipha et al, 2020), driven by the ridging South Atlantic Ocean anticyclone (Figure 2), resulting warm and dry conditions along the southwest coast of the CT study area (Reason, 2017;Shikwambana et al, 2019). Causing a conducive condition for the development and spread of biomass fires along the southwest coast.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The first national scale spatial and temporal analysis of surface CO₂ over South Africa utilising satellite retrievals

Ncipha

Sivakumar

2021

South African Geographical Journal

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

South Africa is the dominant continental source region of CO 2 fossil fuel emissions. This is a result of the strong dependence of its economy on fossil fuels. However, the observations of atmospheric CO 2 in South Africa are inadequate. The country has the Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) Cape Point station as the only site with long-term ambient CO 2 monitoring record. In this study, satellite data retrieved from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) instrument on board the Aura satellite from Dec 2004 to Dec 2009 is used for the first time to quantify the spatial distribution of CO 2 over South Africa, as well as to determine its annual variability at selected sites. The study found that the surface CO 2 foot print in South Africa resembles the industrial CO 2 emission sources spatial distribution, particularly during the summer and autumn. In winter and spring seasons the surface CO 2 foot prints are spatially expanded as a result of contributions of emissions from biomass and domestic fossil fuel combustion. The surface levels of CO 2 at the study areas have been increasing during the period of the analysis.

show abstract

Characterisation of aerosol constituents from wildfires using satellites and model data: a case study in Knysna, South Africa

Cited by 17 publications

References 64 publications

Qualitative Study on the Observations of Emissions, Transport, and the Influence of Climatic Factors from Sugarcane Burning: A South African Perspective

Qualitative Study on the Observations of Emissions, Transport, and the Influence of Climatic Factors from Sugarcane Burning: A South African Perspective

Sentinel-2 Data for Land Cover/Use Mapping: A Review

The first national scale spatial and temporal analysis of surface CO₂ over South Africa utilising satellite retrievals

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Characterisation of aerosol constituents from wildfires using satellites and model data: a case study in Knysna, South Africa

Cited by 17 publications

References 64 publications

Qualitative Study on the Observations of Emissions, Transport, and the Influence of Climatic Factors from Sugarcane Burning: A South African Perspective

Qualitative Study on the Observations of Emissions, Transport, and the Influence of Climatic Factors from Sugarcane Burning: A South African Perspective

Sentinel-2 Data for Land Cover/Use Mapping: A Review

The first national scale spatial and temporal analysis of surface CO2 over South Africa utilising satellite retrievals

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

The first national scale spatial and temporal analysis of surface CO₂ over South Africa utilising satellite retrievals